1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for optimising the allocation of a plurality of resources to a plurality of jobs and to a apparatus for performing such a method. It is particularly suited for use in situations where the availability of resources and the jobs to be performed both change dynamically. An example of such a situation is the allocation of jobs to a field force of operatives, for example ambulance or taxi drivers, a vehicle repair call out field force, or a maintenance field force for a distributed system such as a power or water supply or telecommunications network.
2. Related Art
An article entitled `Work Management System`, by G J Garwood and A C Robinson (British Telecommunications Engineering Journal, Vol 10 No 3 October 1991, pages 204-210) describes a system for allocating jobs to individual field technicians. One element of this system handles unplanned work (as distinct from scheduled or "appointment" work) to handle repairs to faults.
In such situations the workload is highly variable and volatile, and jobs have to be allocated in real time since the necessary response times are of the order of the lengths of the jobs themselves, and very much shorter than an operative's working day. The durations of the individual jobs are themselves highly variable which affects resource availability for those jobs awaiting allocation.
The reference cited above describes in general terms a real-time algorithm which takes into account various attributes of the individual members of the field force (such as their current location, skills forecast time to availability etc.) and jobs required, (such as the skills required to perform them, and their "time to jeopardy": i.e. the time by which the job is to be performed).
Various cost analysis algorithms are known for allocating jobs to resources, such as the so called "Hungarian algorithm" described in a 1955 paper by H W Kuhn "The Hungarian Method for the Assignment Problem" (Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, Vol 2, pages 83-97) and developed further by M B Wright "Speeding up the Hungarian Algorithm", Computer Operations Research Vol 17 No 1 pages 95-96 (1990). However the use of these algorithms in real situations is not easy.